Since Bas Rutten is the former coach of the IFL’s L.A. Anacondas team, Kimbo Slice’s trainer, and a personal hero of CagePotato, you’ll be seeing a lot of him on this site, and it would behoove you to get acquainted with his work. A good place to start is this video of Rutten taking on Frank Shamrock in a 1996 Pancrase match. For those of you who grew up on the UFC, the Pancrase rules might throw you off — wikipedia has a decent overview here.

The fight was so theatrical that some have accused it of being a work. Check out Rutten and Shamrock toppling out of the ring at 5:00-5:06; Shamrock’s backward somersault at 7:14-7:18; the exchange at 9:02-9:18 that I won’t even try to explain; and Bas’s celebratory “Rutten Jump” beginning at 11:50, after the fight was stopped due to a cut near Shamrock’s eye.

On last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, Matt Hughes put his team through a brutal workout to punish them for Dan Barrera’s loss, resulting in a rib injury for Jared “J-Rock” Rollins, who Team Hughes had picked to fight George Sotiropoulos. In other words, Hughes is still a freakin’ moron. Jared was cleared to compete, but looked very tentative against George, threw some of the the laziest kicks in series history, didn’t try to take the fight to the ground, and was subsequently KTFO in the first round. 6-1, Team Serra. Also in the episode, the members of Hughes’s team became fully aware of how awful their coach is, and George’s teammates got angry with him for never waking them up in the morning. By default, the last preliminary fight will be Tommy Speer vs. Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver.

EliteXC held a conference call yesterday to discuss their upcoming “Renegade” event, with live events president Gary Shaw and fighters Kimbo Slice, KJ Noons and Jake Shields in attendance. (The audio is here; dig that funky hold music.)

Obviously, the call belonged to Kimbo. Give this guy a few years and he’ll be operating on Tyson-esque levels of verbal entertainment/insanity. Some of his highlights:

[On training with Bas Rutten]: “Every aspect of my training has improved. My whole life has improved. I don’t even smoke any more. I haven’t had sex in four months. I haven’t had a cocktail in five, six months. So I’m pretty pure and backed up, and I’m ready to fight. My focus is on point. I’m accurate. I know how to use my power. My wind is outstanding. I’m ready for anything coming my way. My groundwork is superb. I’m an all?around fighter. I’m no longer one?dimensional. I’m not going to stand there and bang. Working with Bas, that’s like, man, he’s like the Jimmy Johnson, the John Madden of [MMA].”

Mike “The Rhino” Bourke, the 8-11-1 patsy that was scheduled to be obliterated by Kimbo Slice at the 11/10 EliteXC Renegade event in Corpus Christi, TX, has dropped off the card. Five Ounces reported today that Bourke broke his clavicle during a training session on Sunday, and was forced to pull out of the match. EliteXC has now confirmed that Kimbo’s new opponent at the event will be Bo “Redrum” Cantrell, an equally can-like 10-10-0 fighter who became a part of history on Saturday as the second consecutive guy that Brad Imes submitted by gogoplata.

Man, Elite is really hedging their bets on this one. Are they so insecure about Kimbo’s ability that they won’t put him up against a fighter with a winning record? MMA fans want to see Kimbo in an exciting fight, where he’s challenged, and they’re not going to get it this time. I couldn’t find any decent videos of Mike Bourke or Bo Cantrell in action, so here’s a Kimbo Slice highlight reel that you’ve probably already watched a dozen times. Wonderful.

(Still, that part at 0:41-0:44 where Kimbo lets the dude haul off and hit him in the face will never get old…)

MMA veteran and TUF 4 alum Din Thomas was arrested yesterday for allegedly running un-sanctioned MMA bouts at his gym in St. Lucie West, Florida. (You can see the police report here.) An undercover police officer at the scene observed “a large caged octagon ring with two men inside fighting. There was a third male in the octagon acting as a referee. Around the octagon there were several people (approx. 150 men, women and minors) sitting and standing on make shift stands and chairs facing the octagon cheering while watching the two men fight. Both fighters wore gloves but did not have any protective headgear on. At the front door to the location there was a table with a small sign stating ‘$10.00 per person.’ Also located on the table was a roll of raffle tickets*.”

This sounds like a common shakedown to me. MMA fights in the state of Florida are regulated by the Florida Boxing Commission, an organization that is no doubt frustrated over the fact that no one gives a shit about boxing anymore. Thomas can’t hold an amateur MMA exhibition in his own gym without getting an OK from these jokers? Recockulous. It’s MMA persecution, and we should all be pissed about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make an iron-on “Free Din Thomas” t-shirt.

Last night, ESPN’s sports magazine show E60 did a segment on Pat Miletich and his legendary gym in Bettendorf, Iowa. (Watch it here.) Miletich fighters Brad Imes, Tim Sylvia, Rory Markham and Ben Rothwell all get some screen time, but the most interesting part of the piece was the disclosure of the gym’s membership fees — $75 per month, plus 10% of a fighter’s future winnings if they continue to train with Miletich.

This is amazing to me. Miletich is able to offer arguably the best MMA training in the world for only $2.50/day because he’s so confident his students will not only become successful fighters, but also won’t desert him when the large paychecks start rolling in. Tim Sylvia just had to give Pat $20,000 from his drubbing of Brandon Vera at UFC 77, all for the privilege of being able to push around truck tires and drag weight sleds next to fresh-off-the-bus upstarts in the middle of nowhere. That’s loyalty.

For more of Miletich and his gym, check out this 60 Minutes segment from December of last year:

As for Randy himself, I gotta be honest and say this was one of those “don’t resign from your day job”-type situations. As an actor, he enunciates every word in a very unnatural sort of way (no pun intended). Plus, he’s got those horribly disfigured ears. I just don’t see “leading man” in his future. Though I would love to see a romantic comedy starring him and Sandra Bullock…